and the druid and survival. Kinda links in with my last few posts and recent all-too-brief discussions with The Boy. Part of the initial observation was that MOST classes are identified by the neat thing they can do. The Ranger, at many tables, is identified by the "boring" thing you no longer HAVE to do.
I take a "different" view of what a Ranger is/does than many tables, because I can read (!) From D&D Beyond:
Warriors of the wilderness, rangers specialize in hunting the monsters that threaten the edges of civilization—humanoid raiders, rampaging beasts and monstrosities, terrible giants, and deadly dragons. They learn to track their quarry as a predator does, moving stealthily through the wilds and hiding themselves in brush and rubble. Rangers focus their combat training on techniques that are particularly useful against their specific favored foes.
Thanks to their familiarity with the wilds, rangers acquire the ability to cast spells that harness nature’s power, much as a druid does. Their spells, like their combat abilities, emphasize speed, stealth, and the hunt. A ranger’s talents and abilities are honed with deadly focus on the grim task of protecting the borderlands.
For most parties the Ranger is wilderness travel plot armor. It finds water, forages, hunts and builds shelters, protecting the party as it treks over the mountains, through the woods, along the edge of the veldt and across the desert. But why? NONE of those capabilities are granted in the preceding paragraph. You get one type of creature you can "hunt" well. And you get certain benefits in one type of biome. Again, relying on Beyond, it may now travel faster, not get lost or surprised, garner double the food when foraging and detect number and time passed when tracking. When NOT in their chosen biome these benefits do NOT accrue. Three days w/o water? Party is dead. One day? Levels of exhaustion set in and further searching rolled at disadvantage. RAW require one pound of food per day. Balderdash. A half orc wearing plate and fighting would need over four TIMES that amount to maintain 100% efficacy.
So what DO we do? As is often the case I've gone down the Alexis rabbit hole. We don't use "feats" but we DO rely on "sage abilities." Under that system a ranger obtains knowledge in Wilderland (which I match with the players chosen biome.) Within this biome familiarity the Rangers gains expertise in such things as identifying clean water, locating water, foraging, and all that other Rangery stuff. Mechanics. Crunch. Worldbuilding. None of this one die roll and feed the party regardless of where you are or what time of year it is. As per usual I've set the whole thing up on a spreadsheet. An untrained forager MIGHT find 1/2 a pound of food per day. And it takes time. We divide the amount of food found by 10 and there's that much found per hour. If the chart indicates you find 24# of food (my current party, forest, May, temperate) that's 2.4# per hour. You decide how much travel time you wanna spend foraging! Need 10#? You're looking at 5 hours although I might be generous and allow 4.
Hunting is another sage ability. No-skilled hunters MIGHT find something. But it can take TIME. Resource management.
Our current problem? Our ranger opted to focus on animal training rather than wilderlands. So he COULD (but hasn't yet,) catch and train a falcon! Bird can hunt three pounds of meat at a time! But the Ranger is not yet skilled at these things - by choice. Could be by 4th level. Perhaps I should've been more pushy at character creation but the whole Beastmaster thing seemed strong.
Bottom line .... if you WANT your Rangers to be plot armor (cf Druid Goodberry) you do you. We tend to be a bit more gritty.
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